Adobe Acrobat and Reader print gibberish—a three-year-old bug continues

This is an Adobe Acrobat and Reader bug that has been around for years. As far as I can make out, it began happening with version 8 of Reader. It’s largely why we kept a copy of Acrobat 7 Professional around, just to print PDFs.
   Of course, with the new machine, 7’s too old. I have to get with the latest Readers—but the bug that plagued them in 2008 remains today.
   Here’s how it prints:

This is meant to be a numerical table from the IRD, but there aren’t any numbers. However, the footer on the page, set in Tahoma (not shown here), does print correctly.
   I’ve been online today to find a fix, to no avail. I’m putting it on here as yet another example of someone messing up somewhere. Bit like Facebook not knowing there are time zones outside California for its Timeline updates each month.
   I have tried the usual tricks: selecting ‘Print as image’ and deselecting the system fonts’ option for the PDF printer. Neither has fixed the problem. And you’ll see the characters have not advanced by one ASCII slot: they are gibberish. Or garbage, depending on where you’re from.
   Not that going to Adobe helps, either:

I know that username is taken. It’s taken by me. I’ve had it since the turn of the century. In fact, I logged in to the main Adobe site with it, and the top of the page says, ‘Welcome, Jack,’ even in the forums.
   But if I want to post anything in the forums, I am forced to enter a screen name. And it tells me something I already know.
   Anyone in cyberspace with a clue? I’m on the verge of either trialling PDF XChange Viewer, and seeing if that prints, or putting 7 into the virtual machine, which is about as practical as buying alloy wheels for an engine-less car.


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2 thoughts on “Adobe Acrobat and Reader print gibberish—a three-year-old bug continues

  1. Got the same thing today on my dad’s Win7 comp with latest acroread. Printing as image does not help either …

  2. Hi Alex, I know it’s been five years since I posted, and just under five since you wrote. I eventually downloaded PDF XChange Viewer. It works perfectly well with printing. Acrobat still has this bug in 2017, believe it or not.

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